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AMERICA ARRAIGNED! 


AMERICA ARRAIGNED! 


Edited by 
LUCIA TRENT 
and 


RALPH CHEYNEY 


With an introduction by 
JOHN HAYNES HOLMES 


NEW YORK 


DEAN & COMPANY 
1928 


Copyright 1928 by 
DEAN & COMPANY 


ESR 181 


Printed in the United States of America 


» TALMADGE 


- 


f / f) Y 
| 
CONTENTS PAGE 
SUISSE) SA NR Ces oD MRI 9 
INTRODUCTION by JOHN HAYNES HOLMES ................. 13 


BEFORE GOVERNOR FULLER AND HIS ADVISORY 
COMMISSION REFUSED TO INTERCEDE 


BERENBERG, DAVID P.: 


For the 23rd Of August .......ssssscscsssrsscnssssssnssnssssssscoeconesesesssenees 23 
CHEYNEY, RALPH: 

ATMA THEO DOE TE each oc cccccelasiirs cocensestaeec eee tasenccduceteeds 24 
DAVIES, MARY CAROLYN: 

POLI Cal DOLL ase tae ceeetrs tense getescsentecesscecocancuteee ntbe pee cmensutachoas 5 
deWITT, S. A.: 

Musing Onutwo Meniin: Dedham Jail ccc essesesdocsactaes 26 
MANROSS, W. WILSON: 

Sacco-Vanzetti PUN UKs aN Ges QLD here aetendvacnscanedas cass eeateibaet ieee teeneeiuecce 27 
FEINSTEIN, MARTIN: 

PSTACCHY eaaaaath WV TURCLL MN 5.1 0ii) eM Se svassocdectiesscosecnssscdncodedruauhaecs stsloun ss 28 
FLETCHER, JOHN GOULD: 

RU MMRVACCIN ALLEL ViATEZOLED cxcsssiiiscncceysvolgrenssis nonvces catenins ds cocker taed tae 29 
GINSBERG, LOUIS: 

ee ACCC ITU ATIFOEE Tere sold scarecnenedteepaseecceee |, See haan 30 

BRE REIIIDCCH ATIC LAT UIIED Ucns chy ceeded gal uaa va oak eduaseauentinge anes ass ia ys 31 
GOODENOUGH, CAROLYN LEONARD: 

GREY SACCO. title V ATIZELELS bicsreis cs cansecladseedceodetsadeacarce de saeearun nae Se 
HARTSOCK, ERNEST: 

0 TSMC ASS Fol py Tease aac Billa Se PY Rai Me ERR hi Geshe MUR NG EN oa 
MOSKOWITZ, NICHOLAS: 

FROGS TON RGUT ER ETINIEO) | oct tips care le. s adsthcsen tad, capansecdeycek cash esengaammouaeremere 34 
MUSSER, BENJAMIN: 

Sacco- IY SAREE fase sestt caxsendaneecnntantann stees en necnectnrney senatebostess tite estd iets ao 
RIDGE, LOLA: 

Two MPMI TDCALTT NE LIIISOS Select. cadescecsctececestececbh dntedvetecchess cee ce oe eenG 36 
ROOT, E. MERRILL: 

SET ae Va Te MORE: VWs are ©) URGNGION po cae NOOR UN ee NBL AC ON A GN 39 
ROSE, BLANCHE WALTRIP: 

1a ae wr ate) eee bh NRT AO VL eo ed se Up Np EMG 4l 
SIEGRIST, MARY: 

Tall Winds Shall Walk For Sacco and Vanzetti ................ 42 
SQUIRES, EDITH LOMBARD: 

RE RSSACIIESCHES 1 MO Cameteeelely Scacncchcccecoucap)cpde uous caudssseneascsaseouusorsseues 43 
TRENT, LUCIA: 

PLGW Ly OUT) VV OTIC) LTOTH DIES ee eee oe ata ae en 44 


[5] 


CONTENTS (Continued) 


WHITAKER, ROBERT: PAGE 

The (Calprits coc lalla cecceesslatiet ney nr 45 
ZORN, GREMIN: . 

The Poets Sacco’ and) Vanzetti c....:....cishccscesssesteuceneee een 46 
TRENT Wi PR: 

On Meeting Miss Vanzetti in Paris .......2godeee ee 46 


AFTER INTERCESSION WAS REFUSED BUT BEFORE 
THE CRUCIFIXION 


BLANKFORT, SEYMOUR MICHAEL: 


A Final) Appeal: jiccciccccccccccscceschsscccesossescoscoceseceesaselee aeennanaaa 48 
BYNNER, WITTER: 

The Condemned) iacicessccccsscaccaccecscecsvesssedesccacsscaseussuata gia aetna aaa 49 
CHEYNEY, RALPH: 

To Governor Fuller and his Advisory Council .0.........ccc.s00 50 
CULLEN, COUNTEE: 

Not ‘Sacco and: VanzZetti iscscsccSscccsscossocovsacseecsslcotscegsssase aman ama 51 
DEUTSCH, BABETTE: 

Of ‘Sacco’ and: Vanzetta scccc3ccccsccssleccsocesssocsodecsdecs osaue een aaa 52 
EMORY, WILLIAM CLOSSON: 

Another, Pilate) ccc.) cscs. sludesddscestaccassasealssuscesentola ean 52 
HOLMES, JOHN HAYNES: 

The Ballad of Charlestown Gaol (01.60.05... scsttece eect 53 
POTAMKIN, HARRY ALAN: 

The Infamous Ritual) ii oles et ee 56 


RELLA, ETTORE: 

A Half Hour Before the Execution of Sacco and Vanzetti 57 
ROOT, E. MERRILL: 

On Hearing the News that Governor Fuller Sanctioned 


the Murder of Sacco and’ Vanzettt .2.c.0..0\...c0cce 
RORTY, JAMES: 

Gentlemen of Massachusetts «.....:..:..--sccoss)cecoscoscervecseauatenapaueneniee 59 
TRENT, LUCIA: 

Tro. Bishop Lawrence | o..c...cc.cccccasscocsoocccseienccscatesdses¥ers aeeeenene Manan 61 

To President Lowell and his Commission ..........c:ccscscssseeseee 61 
WOOD, CLEMENT: 

Golgotha in” Massachusetts ( ciccc.ececsc.ccsoscocecscesetesnnsuucqneeeeauee anes 62 


AFTER THE CRUCIFIXION 
BURNS, VINCENT G.: 


Who’ ‘Are. the ‘Griminals 2.) coi. icucssccnsccconlosscepns eee .. 64 
BYNNER, WITTER: | 

Once More, O Commonwealth! \ c.c:.ccsicclsccecesesscossncersnere eugene 65 
CAREW, HAROLD D.: 

Justice’, 1s “Dead «cepeccciccdbeselesscevepessensouaeeaccauscneiuvtesineenet eas aman 66 


CONTENTS (Continued) 


CHEYNEY, RALPH: PAGE 

PCCERS CUT LUy Erne aceite ty ees cer citbaieta ue seoneccder arte et nteticierei octets 67 
DeFORD, MIRIAM ALLEN: 

TEETH Cl1Ghe IVE UIT CET Mattes cn ecay oc cscees scvcsseenceuscandonsstcantuaceeiiereveeassvetensduases 67 
FICKE, ARTHUR DAVISON: 

PCA VOTAily WM ASSACTIUSOLES) | ciccicsacnsvecescsencacsehccvenstutteenedteienescecetoeeice 68 
HARLOW, S. RALPH: 

BES EV Gf OL CU res traNacetstasatvsnse dares casesevessnaseasdugttoutcwct sacunsencdeeeel 69 
KERNAN, MARY PLOWDEN: 

VBR ELV AEC EE cece ose res eaten eta cca oak cokcenccecccosncnaconseutereatelntekeatonetees 70 
KREYMBORG, ALFRED: 

Aueusticends, Ay ed-Letter | Day: si.2....ccceccsueccesmteetindovacoctedias 71 
MAGIL, A. B.: 

BO TAR AG IVE TCLS SEE T1C i vecculescacoancbanscnsvcsasdvaces cosedscncsgepeorae eebaeaeveise 72 
MARKS, JEANNETTE: . 

PREC VAD COPS ETLOU Hid cy Utrcee eles ince cotesaceavchecesochveovcltbccsteetne eaeticetints 77 
MILLAY, KATHLEEN: 

ES LYE GREE 1 Ae SRC 3 a Die Stiefel REY Area 78 
MILLAY, EDNA ST. VINCENT: 

mustice Denied | 11, Massachusetts): ..csc.ccccoctcecsnss ssccseqscavetenpsoscvssecs 79 
LEONARD, WILLIAM ELLERY: 

Se ELL ORIGIN EL rere Tae ree Sascatats enckcrcusepessbeesakt dcauesd eich neadapreseouoneeeeeerms 80 
OATMAN, MIRIAM E-.: 

PP TOP ON COUTTS Prsee eerste cal eess haar vekacaceseduadeccesccenautoucteobesccnessr cent eeease 81 
PASSOS, JOHN DOS: 

PENCE PA UGE IEACE EIN O Wiel crives cccntsocicssenesaesecs vcsestidcsacte leet cenan tar sdectechinte 82 
SPICER, ALICE N.: 

RS ON TW AYRE ME CIEL ii eicoesecescscadeeaieepas csceaties deta chobetconsteabtcine: dinceeecme 85 
SIMMONS, LAURA: 

GET VN 08 a re eR A UR Be ARP URE LH 86 
PRESS, MAX: 

Theta oy ate ep bigs bad Negeri 610 fos Pi Silay acta NO bOI a A NBO Ue dt 87 
SHIPERY JOSEPH T.: 

For a Land that Allows Sacco and Vanzetti to Die ............ 88 
REIGH) HENRY; Jr.: 

Teer ETE Vc CL VGL ates tect tac tuceconckoncverseens Vass vccadsouseeanelosnintons ssevanreotvaiee 90 
SEAVER, EDWIN: 

Ree LOCALS PES ITO tye toca rid csc vtec ateatecotameiesants cad come ee tae cL 91 
TEA JOSIAH: 

EAVES ee eh ret ac ccteasnsecktes tebe ade ohaidanchesecsos toe idkassotieasernts: OR 92 
WEBSTER, BETHUEL MATTHEW, Jr.: 

BURL OTR se oa ratte hue atet a phe a eus Sr ir ssaahacacdckialacebneaecesiceiet nian 93 
HUNT, ALICE RIGGS: 

re TaEata POF ATE ae a 9 RAs eA alr sh LON OR Bee RIE 94 


» 


ean 9 Seo 
ei) a 
() 


FOREWORD 


HIS book is published with a three-fold function. 
It is a memorial tribute to Nicola Sacco and Bartolo- 
meo Vanzetti, martyrs for world brotherhood and 
freedom. It is a protest against the rape of justice by Mas-\ 
sachusetts in murdering these noble and innocent men and 
also by the Justices of the Supreme Court of the United 
States and by President Calvin Coolidge in not interfering. 
We hope that it will serve likewise as a clarion-call to par- 
ticipate in the labor movement for which Sacco and Vanzetti 
gave up their lives on the electric chair and which alone can 
prevent the repetition of such a tragedy. 


Before August 23rd, 1927, day of eternal shame to 
America, we sent part of the manuscript of this book to 
Sacco and Vanzetti and to Gov. Alvin T. Fuller accompanied 
by the following letter to the governor: 


“In the name of the foremost poets of America we 
are sending you part of the manuscript of an anthology 
of poems protesting again the conviction and punishment 
of Sacco and Vanzetti, which will be published in the 
event that these men are not set free. These poems are 
an indication of the attitude of our poets in regard to this 
case. If these innocent martyrs are sent to the chair or 
to prison as victims of war hysteria, and every prejudice 
and force opposed to civilization, this book will live to 
cry shame on the justice of Massachusetts. 

“Yours for American fair play.” 


Not Massachusetts alone must be held responsible, how- 
ever, but the entire American empire. Calvin Coolidge 
might have intervened as did Woodrow Wilson in the Tom 


[9] 


Mooney case—and it is well to remember that Mooney and 
many other victims of frame-ups against labor are at this 
moment behind prison bars. 


Though the editors alone are responsible for the selection 
of the poems which with Dr. John Haynes Holmes’ stirring 
introduction constitute this volume, the following leaders of 
liberal and radical opinion stand sponsor for this venture of 
America’s poets to put themselves on record against oppres- 
sion in a case of world importance: 


Forrest Bailey Gardner Jackson 

Harry Elmer Barnes © Robert Morss Lovett 
Samuel A. DeWitt John Dos Passos 

Mary Donovan Oswald Garrison Villard 
John Haynes. Holmes Gremin Zorn 

B. W. Huebsch 


The publication of this book would have been impossible 
without the generous co-operation of three loyal humanists, 
William Floyd and Helen and Benjamin Musser, to whom 
we gladly acknowledge our debt of gratitude. 


Gratitude is due the editors of the following publica- 
tions for permission to reproduce herein poems originally 
published in their pages: 


The Citizen 

The Commonweal 

The Conning Tower of the New York World 
Contemporary Verse 

The Daily Worker 

The Greenwich Village Quill 

The Nation 

The New Leader 

The New Masses 

The New Republic 

The Sacco-Vanzetti Anthology of Verse (Pamphlet) 
Unity 


[ 10 ] 


In some thirteen days, at the close of a great tragedy and 
the beginning of a great awakening, America was hurled 
into a whirling vortex of forces which she is yet to under- 
stand. “The End and the Beginning,” an analysis during 
the hours of final suspense of the personalities and factors 
at work in the Sacco-Vanzetti Defense Committee of Boston, 
is by Jeannette Marks, professor of English literature at 
Mount Holyoke College, and author of the book Edwin 
Markham writes about as “that remarkable volume ‘Genius 
and Disaster.’”’ One of the Sacco-Vanzetti poems in this 
Anthology, “Two Crucified,” is by her... For “The End 
and the Beginning,” James Oneal, editor of “The New 
Leader,” and author of several books on the history of 
American Labor movements, among them “The Workers 
in American History” and “American Communism,” has 
written an introduction re-stating and interpreting the main 
legal features of the Sacco-Vanzetti indictment and trial. 
In this volume, being published by the Vanguard Press, can 
be found the famous Address given by Mary Donovan at 
the close of the March of Sorrow on August twenty-eighth. 


We wish space permitted us to pay tribute to the many 
men and women, both conservative and radical, who have 
sacrificed greatly to save the lives of these two men and 
American honor in the eyes of the world. 


Lucia Trent 
Ralph Cheyney 


eT aan 


INTRODUCTION 


N April 15th, 1920, a paymaster and his guard were 
shot down in the streets of South Braintree, Massa- 
chusetts, by a gang of five gunmen, who escaped in 

an automobile with loot amounting to about $15,000. 

On May 5th, 1920, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Van- 
zetti, humble workingmen, both Italians, were arrested and 
charged with the above robbery and murder. From the mo- 
ment of this arrest, unusual interest was aroused in the case 
—first, because of the peculiarly atrocious nature of the 
crime, and secondly, because of the unusual character of 
the accused. 

Sacco and Vanzetti were quiet citizens, of good reputa- 
tion. Sacco was an operative in a shoe factory who had an 
excellent record, and was trusted and highly praised by his 
employer. He had a home, a wife and family, a bank-ac- 
count, a garden which was his delight. Vanzetti, a fish- 
peddler, traveled his daily route with his little wagon, well- 
liked by scores of householders, mostly of his own nation- 
ality, with whom he did business. Neither man had ever 
been convicted or accused of any crime.* In the three weeks 
intervening between the murder and their arrest, they con- 
tinued to live quietly and work busily in the neighborhoods 
where they were known. No change of any kind in their 
conduct and appearance was ever reported. So far from 
attempting to hide themselves, both Sacco and Vanzetti were 
participating in preparations for a public meeting in which 
they would be conspicuous in an unpopular cause. Yet 
these were the men who were charged with committing in 
broad daylight, on a crowded street, a desperate robbery, 


*The charge against Vanzetti for the attempted hold-up at Bridge- 
water on December 24, 1919 and his subsequent trial and conviction 
came after the arrest for murder. 


[13 ] 


carried through with such promptitude, efficiency and ruth- 
lessness as to suggest inevitably the work of professional 
bandits. 


There was another peculiar and unusual circumstance 
in the case. The late winter and spring of 1920 was the 
time of the famous deportation raids conducted by Attorney- 
General Palmer. Radicals of every description were being 
rounded up by Department of Justice agents, held under 
charges of one kind and another, and sent out of the country 
whenever possible. Now Sacco and Vanzetti were both 
radicals! They were members of the so-called Galleani 
group of anarchists who were being hunted by Palmer’s 
lawless agents. One of the most prominent of them, Salsedo, 
had been seized in New York, and had either jumped 
or been thrown from a fourteenth-story window of the Park 
Row building, where he had been detained eight weeks. 
Sacco and Vanzetti, fearing immediate arrest and a like fate, 
had armed themselves; when suddenly arrested on May 5th, 
they assumed at once that they were being seized because of 
their radical activities. Nor were such fears and assump- 
tions groundless, for an agent of the Department of Justice, 
Fred J. Weyand, has since testified on oath that “these 
men had nothing whatever to do with the South Braintree 
murders, and that their conviction was the result of coopera- 
tion between the Boston agents of the Department of Jus- 
tice and the District Attorney (of Norfolk County, Massa- 
chusetts).” 


It was facts of this description which aroused the in- 
terest not only of Sacco and Vanzetti’s fellow-countrymen 
and fellow-radicals, but of certain men and women of liberal 
spirit who feared that injustice was being done under guise 
of law. As the case developed, especially during and after 
the trial at Dedham, interest was deepened and fear quick- 
ened among a growing number of persons who never before 
had become involved in such an affair. The case for the 
prosecution was obviously weak. ‘The alibis of the defend- 
ants were impressive both in number and. quality. The 


a. 


judge, Webster Thayer, was bitterly hostile. The district 
attorney, Mr. Katzmann, was ferocious in his attacks on the 
prisoners. All sorts of extraneous facts, bearing directly or 
indirectly on the dangerous radicalism of the defendants 
and calculated to prejudice the hand-picked jury, were 
dragged into the court-room. The verdict of guilty left a 
settled conviction in the minds of thousands that Sacco and 
\. Vanzetti had been denied a fair trial, and that the sentence 
\\ represented a gross betrayal of justice. Yet every effort for 
justice in the case failed: 


Eight motions were made to Judge Thayer for a new trial, 
but this prejudiced man, in effect passing on his own bias as 
well as on the new evidence submitted, obstinately refused a 
re-opening of the case. Twice appeal was made from Judge 
Thayer’s decisions to the Supreme Court of the state, only 
to reveal that the highest tribunal in Massachusetts could or 
would do nothing in the case. Amid growing alarm and in- 
dignation in the minds of millions of people the world 
around, the case was carried as a last resort to the Gov- 
ernor, Alvin T. Fuller, who associated with himself in a 
matter now become momentous beyond all expectation, an 
Advisory Committee consisting of Judge Robert Grant, Pres- 
ident A. Lawrence Lowell, of Harvard University, and Pres- 
ident Samuel Wesley Stratton, of the Massachusetts Institute 
of Technology. When the Governor, with unanimous ad- 
vice of this Committee, refused to interfere, two facts be- 
came apparent. First, Massachusetts was determined to 
vindicate her law and assert her power, though innocent 
men were made to pay the price of death. Secondly, and in 
its larger aspects, this case was only a latest episode in 
the age-long struggle of the weak against the strong, the 
poor against the rich, the workers against the masters. 
When, on the night of August 22nd, 1927, amid a silence on 
Boston streets that seemed a world-wide hush of horror, 
Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were burned to 
death in the electric chair, a new chapter was finished in the 
dark but heroic aE of man’s ceaseless struggle against op- 
pression. 7 


[15] 


ern 


The first reaction upon this legal crime was that of wrath, 


shame, pity, and overwhelming despair. Now that time has 


softened the passion of that midnight hour, there comes a 
sense of uplift. 

The way those men endured the agony of their seven 
years torture, and the way at last they died! With what 
ecstacy was Vanzetti inspired, when he spoke those immortal 
words to the judge who condemned him: 

“Tf it had not been for these things, I might have live 
out my life, talking at street-corners to scorning men. 
I might have die, unmarked, unknown, a failure. Now 
we are not a failure. This is our career and our triumph. 
Never in our full life can we hope to do such work for 
tolerance, for justice, for man’s understanding of man, 
as now we do by an accident. Our words, our lives, our 
pains—nothing! The taking of our lives—lives of a good 
shoemaker and a poor fish-peddler—all! That last mo- 
ment belong to us—that agony is our triumph!” 

For all our grief and horror, the example of such spirit- 
ual grace as this brought courage and new faith! 

Then the protest that sustained the cause, if it did. not 
save the lives, of these two men! There is a sense of justice 
in the world, after all. When two humble workers can so 
stir the hearts of men, we can still trust in humankind. When 
such. an effort can be made to vindicate two unimportant 
radicals for the sake of abstract right, we may look to a 
brighter future. There is an end to this sort of thing. Some 
day man’s spirit will master his institutions, man’s sacrifice * 
redeem society, and love at last be regnant upon the earth. 
I know that Amos saw a true vision when he foretold the 
coming of a time when “justice (should) flow down as 
water, and righteousness as a mighty stream,” for in the 
Sacco-Vanzetti case I have felt the spiritual power of the 
awakened conscience of the race. 

Lastly, the new mobilizing of conscience for the work 
ahead! “We have an idea,” said the Boston Herald, a few 
days after the execution in Charlestown prison, “that the 
case will soon be over, and that the public here and abroad, 


[ 16 | 


of every shade of opinion, will accept the result, and forget 
about it. The whole affair will then pass into history, not 
again to be heard from...’ Thus do the strong ever sat- 
isfy themselves that they can crush the poor and weak into 
oblivion. They kill the body, and think that therewith they 
are killing the soul. How mad their delusion! How ridicu- 
lous their complacency! For nothing lives so surely, so im- 
perishably, so terribly, as injustice! 


Chicago thought that the case of the Haymarket bomb- 
throwers would “soon be over” and men “forget about it,” 
when the anarchists had been tried and condemned, as Sacco 
and Vanzetti were tried and condemned, in a courtroom 
dominated by fear and hate, and at last, by due process of 
law, had been put to death upon the scaffold. But nothing 
could end the horror of that judicial crime. Men “of every 
shade of opinion” slept uneasily at night; they walked the 
streets distraught and fearful by day. The vision of these 
anarchists would not down. Their noosed bodies hung at 
every street-corner and in every doorway. And while all 
men were thus unhappy, some men were busy! These latter 
were determined to get at the truth, that the world might 
know and not merely suspect the horror that had been done. 
And at last, so clearly was the prejudice of the court estab- 
lished, so utterly the verdict of the jury discredited, so 
fully the innocence of the condemned vindicated, that an 
heroic Governor was moved to do the little that he could to 
correct the wrong, and thus restore the ways of justice to 
his state. The anarchists’ case was never, and will never 
be, forgotten. It is remembered, att will forever be reme 


In the same way, France thought that the Dreyfus case 
would “soon be over,” and men “forget about it,” when the 
helpless Captain had been condemned as a traitor, and sent 
away to his living death on Devil’s Island. Nothing could 
be more complete and final than the destruction of this man 
—nothing more overwhelming than the power arrayed 


[17] 


against him. But the case lived on! The body of Dreyfus 
was in his tropic prison, but his spirit haunted the boule- — 
vards of Paris. One year, two years, three years, four years, 
five years went by, and still Dreyfus lived more terribly 
than ever. For all the passing of time, for all the power of 
army and state, that traitor-Jew on Devil’s Island would not 
disappear. He had been banished from French soil, but 
nothing could avail to banish him from French minds. Then 
at last spoke Zola, who now, for this one heroic deed, lies 
buried in eternal glory in the Pantheon—and the case was 
reopened until justice was done. Dreyfus now lives in honor, 
and France forever hangs her head in shame. 


But the perfect precedent is the Calas case in eighteenth 
century France, the case which Voltaire made immortal. 
The poor villager, Calas, was arrested, tried and condemned 
for the death of his son. Calas was a Protestant, his son 
had recently turned Catholic; this gave the Church the 
chance to charge murder when the boy’s body was discov- 
ered. Calas was broken on the wheel, his property confis- 
cated, his family driven as beggars on to the highroad. The 
priests patted unctuously their good round bellies, and knew 
that the case would “soon be over’ and forgotten. But it 
was not forgotten! No man weaker than Calas; no institu- 
tion more potent than the Church! But the rumors of this 
case traveled on the current of every river, took wings and 
flew on every wind. At last they came to the ears of Vol- 
taire in Geneva, and aroused this man, already old, to the 
greatest work of his life. Voltaire made the Calas case his 
mission to his contemporaries and to posterity. He carried 
its story to every nation in Europe. He bombarded princes 
and bishops with the ceaseless fire of his wrath. Consumed 
himself with hatred of injustice, he resolved that the world 
should never sleep again until this crime had been corrected. 
Voltaire labored on this case for years; and in the end, as 
always, justice triumphed. Calas was vindicated, his family 
restored, and the case made memorable forever to the glory 
of truth and the shame of wicked men. 


[ 18 ] 


So, now, with Sacco and Vanzetti! ‘Massachusetts, 
there she stands’—triumphant, scornful, contented, bloody. 
She thinks her crime upon the innocent will be forgotten. 
Certainly she hopes it will be forgotten, for in her own heart 
she knows she has done murder. But deeds like this live 
on. There are those who would make them live, if they did 
not within themselves have the momentum of survival. For 
the universe, after all, is moral. A work of violence and 
horror, like that achieved upon Sacco and Vanzetti, dis- 
rupts the cosmic order, which itself must strive till it is 
whole again. The agitation for the release of these men, 
which began years ago, will continue, now that they are dead, 
for years to come, until at last the truth is known and 
heard. There are millions of men who will never forget, 
until Sacco and Vanzetti are justified. There are thousands 
of men who will never rest, until the work of justification 
has been carried through to its triumphant end. If these 
men reach not the goal in their time, they will teach the 
tale to their children, and pledge them to like service of the 
murdered dead. So will the story become a legend through 
all future time—the names, Sacco and Vanzetti, the per- 
petual symbols of victorious martyrdom. 


This book is the voice of the poets. They have heard the 
cry of stricken justice, and have caught it up in words of 
prophecy and poignant song. Anger, pity, love speak in 
these pages. All men and women committed to the Sacco- 
Vanzetti cause must feel gratitude to the compilers of this 
anthology, Lucia Trent and Ralph Cheyney,* themselves 
true poets of prophetic vision, for gathering this chorus and 
thus adding to the volume of that mighty million-tongued 
voice which will “lift up like a trumpet, and spare not” till 
the “nation do righteousness, and forsake not the ordinances 
of justice.” 

John Haynes Holmes 


; *Ralph Cheyney has lost his position on account of his participation 
in this protest. 


[19 ] 


ty 
ry 


BEFORE GOV. ALVIN T. FULLER AND HIS AD- 
VISORY COMMISSION REFUSED TO INTERCEDE 


FOR THE 23RD OF AUGUST 


These two sad men! The day we let them die 
A little more of that will pass away 
That was our soul. Our heavy earth-bound clay 
Will loom a little darker in the sky. 
Oh, few faint voices bravely asking “Why?” 
You pass like whispers in the roaring play 
Of madmen marching to a holiday. 
We know. We know, why bound to death they lie. 


Who thinks of them? The millions do not know, 
And if they did, their souls would still be lamed. 
The pride that once on Boston Common flamed 

These many years is burning very low. 

Nearer and nearer, ominous and slow, 

Marches the death by which we shall be shamed. 


—David P. Berenberg 


[ 23 ] 


THE WHITE TERROR 


Before such men as you I stand 

With head hung low, abashed, ashamed, 
Not only of my Judas land 

But that I also should be blamed. 


That courts are owned by wealth and error 
Is nothing new in history’s pages; 

And men who fight the armed White Terror 
Must face their death while hatred rages. 


But shame on folk of the printed word 
Who raise no cry that rich men plunder! 
Come, let our voices all be heard 
In revolutionary thunder. 


—Ralph Cheyney 


[ 24 ] 


THEIR WEAPON 


“We are proud of death,” 
Two men said; 

“We are proud of death;” 
When they are dead, 


They shall be leaders 
Greater far 

Than the living 
Ever are. 


They shall sway thousands 
With stopped breath, 
With quiet hands. 
If you give them death 


You give a sword 
For their hands to slay 
All you hold dear and high 
Some day. 


—Mary Carolyn Davies 


[25 ] 


MUSING ON TWO MEN IN DEDHAM JAIL 


You, in quiet courage 

Have retained a freedom 
Wider than the space 
Where even the planets fret 
Away their settled dooms. 


You are the symbol 

Of our servitude. 

The bars that halt your flesh 
Are stripes that sear 

Their insolence and shame 
Upon our souls... 

Souls . . . Recurrent Christ, 
Forgive the sacrilege... ! 


Souls are instruments of sense 
Beyond the grunt of swine 
Who snout the filth of pens 
For sustenance. 


Only souls can see 

The vision founting from the eyes 
Of one who dies 

Quite firmly for a dream. 


One Christ is worth 
A thousand-fold 

The craven multitude 
He bleeds himself 
To save. 


And if you die, 

Oh, do not say you gave 
Your torchlike living 

For our sodden selves.... 


| 26 | 


But slowly let us learn 

How we 

Who stood complacently before 
Your piteous gaol 

Had lost our liberty. 


—S. A. deWitt 


SACCO — VANZETTI 


A cry of “red” affrights the rabbit court; 
The Law runs, trembling, from a crimson rag. 
Two souls must face the death-embracing chair 
That judges, at their plush-lined clubs, may boast 
Of how they sent the bloody Reds to Hell. 


Sweet Justice bleeds upon the court-room floor, 
While cringing jurors shake with hate and fear, 
And trample in the stinking mud and filth 
The name of their once glorious native state; 
And grinning murder wears the garb of Law. 


—W. Wilson Manross 


[27] 


SACCO AND VANZETTI 


Who is it knocks upon the gate? 
Who is it cries from fallen feet? 
O brothers, let us not be late, 

O warriors, stand against retreat! 


The bloody ballad sings again, 

And men are wasted by despair, 

Lo, where the garrulous wings complain 
In a cuckold-crowded air! 


Dragging a noisome trail of wonder 

The caravans of darkness drift 

Against your brightening word of thunder, 
O dawn-awakened ones, be swift! 


Who is it knocks upon my heart? 

They have debarred you, crucified! 
Called you savage, and upstart, 

Broken your teeth, and pierced your side. 


Wide are the currents of your grief, 
Deep upon deep your torment lies, 

O tasters of the bitter leaf, 

O runners where the summer dies! 


—NMartin Feinstein 


[ 28 ] 


TO SACCO AND VANZETTI 


Because you believed 

Man must win through to final perfect freedom; 

Because you held 

That justice should be done beneath the sky ; 

Because you knew 

The desperateness of your cause, and yet dared fight for it; 

Behold, we prosperous ones whose eyes and hearts are 
blinded, 

In the name of the law, set forth our proclamation 

That you shall shamefully die. 


And is it not right, 

Within this cage where gods and men alike are heartless, 

Is it not fair, 

Since greed and lust consume our hollow days, 

Is it not clear 

By the rules of this slaughterhouse where insects stir and 
couple, 

That you who would not take life upon such terms, 

Should have your lips contemptuously sealed to all our blame 
and praise? 


—John Gould F letcher 


[29 ] 


TO SACCO AND VANZETTI 


The vision of your love, a current, streams 
Forth from your prison, a magnetic pole, 

Encircling every country, every clime, 
And galvanizing every slothful soul. 


Let your magnetic current burn away 
All torpor, all indifference .. . let its heat 
Scorch the false glitter and the vacant pride, 
The arrogance of high and smug conceit. 


Thus, Sacco and Vanzetti, may your words 
Reverberate through every clime and mart; 
There is no other nation but the race; 
There is no other country but the heart. 


—Louis Ginsberg 


[ 30 ] 


TRUMPETS AND DRUM | 


Sacco and Vanzetti, 
You ransom us from sleep 
Which manacles with fetters 
That silent cravens keep. 


You are the living trumpets 
In lands where tyrants rail; 
You know that freedom blossoms, 
When freedom is in jail. 


Thus blazoned to each conscience, 
Your spirit’s freedom tells 

We are the ones in prison; 
We are the ones in cells. 


Your anguish is a banner ; 
Your pride it waves like flame; 
For you, all tongues of rancor 
Become the tongues of fame! 


Sacco and Vanzetti, 

You make the world your drum 
To herald to the ages 

Your glorious martyrdom! 


—Louis Ginsberg 


[31] 


TO. SACCOrAND VANZE OTT 


In happier years you strove to find 
A way of Justice for Mankind. 
You gained instead a felon’s cell 
And death, perhaps, we cannot tell. 


But this you’ve gained, a world aroused 
Till Justice is once more espoused ; 

A world that angered through your cause 
Demands revision of its laws. 


So others need not share your fate, 
Or die through prejudice and hate. 
Now, by your case, all hearts are tried, 
The friends of Truth are on your side. 


What if the base outrank the true? 
The ages still belong to you. 

Your names a bugle-call shall be, 
Till men shall flame to set men free. 


You’ve shared the sufferings of the cross, 

You’ve done your share, you’ve gained through loss 
A place to live in hearts of men, 

You’ve knit the ranks of Truth again. 


So live or die, brave men, in peace! 

A world will welcome your release; 

Or, if you die, mankind will say, 

“Two martyrs’ crowns were won today.” 


—Carolyn Leonard Goodenough 


[ 32 ] 


THE NEW SALOME 
O shall we call her Justice who demands 
No scale but vengeance for her bloody hands? 


Who lewd and shameless strips to dance before 
The tyrant Prejudice like her who bore 


John’s guiltless head triumphant on a platter? 
A sweet dish for the law! Is it no matter 


That innocence is slain to make a prize 
On which Hate’s Harpy stoops to gormandize? 


Yet, if she be not Justice, rip the veil 
From the imposter’s face—but do not pale 


With thwarted rage nor choke with frightened breath 
To see that phantom men call Death. 


—Ernest Hartsock 


[ 33 ] 


JESUS ALSO SINNED 


Visions forever dwell within the souls of men. 
Forever pound upon Jehovah’s land. 

Ideas forever wake the earth 

With re-echoing thunders. 


When Jesus sinned against his fathers, 
Brothers crucified him; 

The bloody wound in his flesh 

Became a banner for marching men. 


Men march forever 
Beating time 
To tomorrow’s hymn. 


Tomorrow men will be one 
With the earth and with heaven. 


Men will lift 
Red horizons above their heads 
Replacing them with blue transparencies. 


Trumpets 
Will blast open 
Forgotten graves. 


And they will come forth 
Who have died on the crosses; 


The valleys will forget 

The snow and the winters; 

And the mountains will raise 

Their trees to the unconquered skies. 


—Nicholas Moskountz 


[ 34 ] 


SACCO — VANZETTI 
(From a Long Poem) 


If you must die because from alien race 

You bring a social redemption and rebirth, 
Mercy must evermore conceal her face, 

Justice and Truth must vanish from the earth. 
If you must die, something will die in us 
That fed itself to law; if you must die, 

Death’s womb will bear a scourge more perilous 
To peace of Mammon -than is anarchy. 

You are a crucial case, decisive test, 

Puppets in drama far beyond our ken; 

And on you laboring immigrants will rest 
Shambles for brutes, or betterment of men. 


—Benjamin Musser 


[35 ] 


TWO:vIN THE DEATH HOUSE: 


Shall we “make heroes” of you—when all you ruminate, 

Of songs, books, art, or the world’s thought, 

Hard-learned, meagerly fitting, like worker‘s clothes, 

Askew upon you, might be talked out in one evening? 

Of you—not having any bright possession, or good hope 
of it, 

Save what lies in two hands—hands cognizant 

Of the cool feel of fish and of the grains of leathers, 

Hands made stiff 

In such plain service as men live by, yet despise the servers. 


We cannot see, for those used hands, you are about to die... 

Or we might find that in your eyes not to our liking, a dimmed 

Opaque foreglimmering of a too imminent light 

That may burn up, like some high-powered ray, 

All that we have and are or may be, even... there is a 
torsion in this thought.... 

All our poor guerdons of posterity. I do not know 

What you have given or withheld or hid deep from maraud- 
ing death— 

What gleams of your balked vision, whose harsh fire 

May make men blind or mad, but never quite 

Leaves eyes that it has once illumined, or what malfeasant 
shapes 

Conspire in the watched night, there cornered in your prison 
house. 

But this I know recurs: 


old man with empty eyes, 

eyes of an old doll 

upon which the wax has melted, 
out of the buzzing silence 
blue-coated shapes, 

well-filled and tight 

as the bellies of blue flies, 
staring out of their eye-places 


[ 36 | 


at but not into your warm men’s eyes 
as they lead you out... 


Hour by sleuth hour, till the cropped gold head 

Of morning, shut outside the corridors, had turned to gray, 
Their looks, infesting even the midnight, crept 

Nimbly, along the flashlight’s ray 

And battened on you while you slept. 


Seven times, ice-bearing days have shaken their white crops 
upon the world 

And forward airs have rumored of the loam at heat, down- 
ward, over the coifed hills. 


slim tongues of flame 
licking at the iceheads, 
about the plumed peaks 

out of consuming snow 

an invisible smoke going up 
in the crystal silences 

a silvery crying 

of little waters set at large. 


You have endured those moments, you 

Close to the rough nap of earth, and knowing her perennial 
ways. 

And when, on some one of your counted mornings, light 

That pulls at the caught roots of things 

Has pierced you with a touch, or leavened air, 

Too warm and softly mutinous for men to bear 

Who knows that which you know, blows in and on you. 

You too have hoped—with the ardor of young shoots, re- 
nascent under the concrete, 

And with them have gone down to defeat again. 


You, Vanzetti, with the marching blue in your eyes, 

And your smile a lonesome thing in the shadow of the death 
house, 

I think you know, for children know sometimes and child- 
like men, } 


[ 37 ] 


There are two lights that, running parallel, may flame— 

Flame being one with flame and not with that it feeds upon— 

Into one dazzling circuit. And meeting thus destroy 

All that which lies between... . 

Did not once a keeper turn, he too smiling a little, 

He like you isolate, from you forever separate, 

Only your smile, like a split ray of light, identical, 

That for a moment trembles together, traversing the dark 
impasse. 

Did he fumble, missing a beat in the implacable rhythm, as 
he turned the key, 

As one letting fall a vessel might pause before stooping to 
see if the pattern be broken. 

Old patterns are not easily broken, inspired fishmonger, 

Though “men about to die may be forgiven for plain speak- 
ing” 

And in your eyes that are intrepid without hate 

And unwavering before oncreeping death, you yet hold your 
captaincy. 

—Lola Ridge 


[ 38 J 


SACCO AND VANZETTI 


Two simple men who loved the sun 
Were sentenced to oblivion 
For the thing they had not done— 


Two simple men whose martyrdom 
Was to be stricken blind and dumb 
Because they prayed, “Thy Kingdom come!” 


Yet did not merely pray, but spoke 
The future’s gospel, till they woke 
Perhaps a score of working folk. 


They spoke for human brotherhood ; 
They would not call red murder good; 
When others crouched in fear—they stood! 


They hated force of steel or stealth; 
Love was their sun to bring men health; 
They saw the world one commonwealth. 


Within the world (that wild beasts’ den!) 
They spoke to wolves as if to men, 
That Eden might return again. 


In fear of truth and innocence, 
Men silenced them with the immense 
Irony of a vile pretence. 


Men shut them from the earth and air 
And sun that were so free and fair ; 
Seven years their warden was despair. 


Trapped within stone they had to walk— 
Death like the shadow of a hawk 

Above them—while the lawyers talk— 
Seven years their house was stone and steel, 


While sick hope in recurrent reel 
Whirled them like men strapped to a wheel. 


[ 39 J 


The tribal victims of blood-lust 
And all the cobwebs and the dust 
Of judges legal and not just. 


Tombed for lost years they had to lie 
While the white Spring seven times went by— 
Poor dead men who could never die! 


Yet though they could not move but lay 
Inert, they knew that every day 
They stumbled down a steeper way— 


Away from which they could not turn 
Till down far vistas they discern 
The sullen bulk of chairs that burn. 


There in the darkness clear they saw 
Engines of anguish and of awe, 
The fiery guillotines of law. 


They felt the iron cap whose chill 
Is but a dam of ice to spill 
The floods of fire that roar and kill— 


The cap that pours into the brain 
The livid needles of its pain 
Till the blood boils within the vein. 


They felt the fumbling trusties lock 
The straps about them, while the clock 
Beat the sick moments till the shock— 


The moments that must have an end 
When some white, unseen hand should send 
The tides of fire to roar and rend— 


Oceans of fire to stab and strain 
Through ruptured channels of each vein 
Till the skull bubbles with the brain. 


| 40" 


O Jesus Christ, our Master, you 
Died that our love might save these two: 
And still we know not what we do! 


—E, Merrill Root 


PRISONERS 


The powers that be 

Must love thoughts of the gray skeletons 
Of your hopes: 

AT Sacco, 

Ah, Vanzetti, 

Though they chain your flesh 
And thirst to drink your tears, 
Even now they too, are prisoners 
Bound by their lust for might. 
And their imprisonment shall last 
Through the length of years, 

But you— 

You shall lie in peace: 

You must be free! 


—Blanche Waltrip Rose 


[41 ] 


TALL, WINDS SHALL WALK FOR? 
SACCOVAND VANZET EL 


Tall winds shall walk across your dungeon bars, 
And unseen trumpets on the darkness ride, 
Invisible hands shall turn a key within, 

Voices shall cry “Acquitted!” through the world. 


Not easily shall this darkness be resolved, 

Light from the breath of finer ethers drawn; 

Yet shall it surely come, one with the suns and tides, 

The appointed hour of slow, inevitable dawn. 

Hour when the Shining Ones that now press heavily, 

Weeping for “Stupor Mundi,” through seven-veiled bands 
of night 

Shall be as those who pass to some bright festival. 


Where are the keys that shall unlock your doors? 

Whose is the hand shall smite to freedom’s skies? 

Know this, O held of a dark that is deeper than darkness: 
By day and night they speed, the Unseen Messengers, 
Hourly the Invisible Liberators of the skies 

Work toward the will of Light. 

Daily they gather in the sacred groves, 

Burning the darkness . . . speaking a peace to men. 


Only wait out the sodden, bat-eyed moments, wait; 
High hearts, still bear the dungeon’s stark indignity; 
Time is a fountain for you, laving our air, 

Time is a sword, brandishing truth in our faces, 
Time is an army, driving the tyrannies. out! 


—Mary Siegrist. 


[ 42 ] 


MASSACHUSETTS 1667-1927 


Old Granny Green in her garden plot 
Hobbles and mutters, “Here’s bergamot, 
Marjoram, fennel, thyme and rue— 

But I cannot see, as I used to do; 

My hands are heavy, my bones are sore, 
Yet folks still come to my cottage door 
And ask for simples and herbs to heal, 
Or a charm to make the coldest feel 

The warmth of spring, love’s eager pain— 
Ah me, I would I were young again! 

For ’tis cruel hard to grow old alone, 

But I have my cat and my own hearth-stone, 
And my bit of garden to love and tend— 
But times are hard at the winter’s end. 


“Hark, up the road comes a merry shout! 

My dull ears ring—’tis a noisy rout— 

And what are they calling? ‘Old Granny Green!’ 
“Yes, yes I’m coming.’ (My apron’s clean, 

’*Twill cover my ragged shift and gown. 

Sure, ’tis gentry driving out from town.)” 


She curtsied and smiled with her hand at her ear, 
While her black cat purred, as the crowd drew near; 
And then, as a stone flew swiftly by, 

She crawled in the bushes to snarl and die. 

“Old witch,” one yelled, “You killed my cow!” 

And another, “My daughter’s at death’s door now!” 
While a third sent a stone with well-flung aim, 

And she shrieked when it struck her—the old beldame! 


They carried her down to the market-square, 
And they burnt her old body to ashes there; 
While Cotton Mather and all his kin, 
Watched with a sanctimonious grin. 


[ 43 ] 


Ah, that was three centuries past, you say— 
But 1s justice done in the world today? 


—Edith Lombard Squires 


HOW YOUR WORLD TREMBLES 
Lovers, glide through your mirrored halls, 
Or kiss a while by your garden walls, 


Pink tea ladies with gold lorgnettes 
Expatiate on your red sunsets. 


Your way of life is any easy thing 
Where one may chuckle and choose and sing. 


In another world is an iron door. 
Two men stare at a sullen floor. 


Watch from citadels of ease 
How your world trembles at men like these! 


—Lucia Trent 


| 44 | 


THE: CULPRIT 


Where once, by Massachusetts bay, 
On bloody Boston Common, 

The Quakers went the hangman’s way, 
The “wrath of God” upon ’em; 

And Salem’s sombre judges raged, 
Approved by law and jury, 

And war against the witches waged 
With Bible-nourished fury. 


Again the court and state unite 
To do the Devil’s bidding ; 
With show of Justice and of Right 
Their coward conscience kidding. 
The whole world now the stage, whereon 
They work their own undoing; 
The very ghosts of ages gone 
Today’s hysteria spewing. 


O, Massachusetts! ere the hour 
Shall seal thy shame forever, 
Stay thou thy mannikins of power! 
And check their mad endeavor! 
How shall they fear who face the chair, 
Thorn-crowned, blood-stained, and sweaty? 
Thou art the culprit, roped and bare!. 
Not Sacco and Vanzetti. 


—Robert Whitaker 


[45 ] 


THE POETS TO SACCO AND VANZE GT: 


Not for you— 
You are already deified— 
But for ourselves we raise a lamentation 


Not for you— 
You are already crucified— 
But for ourselves we beg a vindication. 


We shall be forgotten 
When the red dawn breaks; 
You shall have begotten 
Immortal stakes. 
—Gremin Zorn 


ON MEETING MISS VANZETTI IN PARIS 


In my emotional life nothing has so impressed me as 
meeting in Paris Signorina Vanzetti just from her farm on 
her way across the Atlantic to meet her condemned brother 
in America. Her face was pale and tragic, and the purging 
of my feelings sped apace as though from the effects of 
Sophoclean art. She was clad in simple black, and seemed 
a rural not a regal Electra. Clytemnestra and her bloody 
mate had no part in that play; and there was none to put 
to death save that protesting pair far away in a prison ward. 
But Nemesis behind went up into the air. 


—W. P. Trent 


| 46 ] 


AFTER INTERCESSION WAS REFUSED BUT 
BEFORE THE CRUCIFIXION 


A FINAL APPEAL 


Winds of the world give answer, 
Answer in sweeping song. 
Winds of the world, we ask you. 
How long? How long? 


Seas of the shouting waters, 
Instruments of Fate, 

Seas of the dancing waters, 
Shall we wait? We wait. 


Stars of the heavenly scroll, 

Many faced scroll called sky, 
Answer, O cup of the night, 

Must we die? We die. 


—Seymour Michael Blankfort 


[ 48 J 


THE CONDEMNED 


Once you have killed these men, destroy their skin 
And bone utterly and hide all vestiges 

Of their existence. Let only nothingness 

Remain of what your prisoners have been. 

Permit their friends no grave to lay them in, 

Brase their writings and their likenesses, 

Forbid their names in all assemblages, 

Cause them to be unmentionable sin. 


For if anyone so much as named their name, 

It would mean not them but you yourselves and shame, 
And looking on their likeness he would see 

Not them in prison cells but you and me— 

And would find recorded on their graveyard stone 
That the death we meant for them became your own. 


—Witter Bynner 


[ 49 | 


TO GOVERNOR FULLER AND HIS 
ADVISORY COUNCIL 


America is dead; her heart is stricken. 

The state that bore her now has brought her death. 
At your smug deed not only live men sicken; 

Our patriot dead draw one hurt shuddering breath. 


How will the future hold you slaves whose lust 
Led you to rape your land, bring scorn upon her? 
She yet may grow, reborn, from martyrs’ dust. © 
But she lies dead. No land outlives its honor. 


—Ralph Cheyney 


130] 


NOT SACCO AND VANZETTI 


These men who do not die, but send to death, 
These iron men whom mercy cannot bend 
Beyond the lettered law, what when their breath 
Shall quietly and naturally end? 
What shall their final retribution be, 
What bloody silver then shall pay the toils, 
Exacted for this legal infamy, 
When death indicts their stark, immortal souls? 


The day a slumbering but awful God, 
Before time to eternity is blown, 
Examines by the same unyielding rod 
These images of His with hearts of stone— 
These men who do not die, but death decree, 
These are the men I should not care to be! 


—Countee Cullen 


[51] 


U. OF ILL: LIB: 


OF SACCO AND VANZETIEI 


Who has been happy, tasting sunny fruits, 
Or hearing summer hum her vast green song, 
Or watching ocean tugging at its roots, 
Or lying in quick arms when nights are long— 
How shall he now bask in the honey hours, 
Ask favors of his love or of his fate, 
When, like a beast fondling what it devours, 
Law slobbers justice—cold upon the plate. 


Yet history knows: to every age, its crimes; 

Empires half-fledged cannot be wholly wise. 
We shudder, learning to endure our times, 

And from the threatened flood avert our eyes. 
Our senses will applaud the world again. 

But who can clap life into murdered men? 


—Babette Deutsch 


ANOTHER PILATE 
(To Gov. Fuller on his Sacco-Vanzetti deciston:) 
Another Pilate washed his hands and said: 
The priests of gold are clamoring in my ear, 
(And thinking of his politician’s head) 
I really see no cause to interfere. 


—Wrilliam Closson Emory 


[ 52] 


THE BALLAD OF CHARLESTOWN GAOL 


1 
There’s a chair for you, Vanzetti, 
In a cold and empty room; 
A chair aloof and lonely, 
Like a spectre in the gloom; 
A chair with open arms and wide, 
To welcome you to doom. 


Z 
They’ve made this chair, Vanzetti, 
Good men, and strong and true, 
To manifest the will of God 
On poor men such as you; 
To show the Lord Christ lives again, 
And dies, the Lord Christ, too! 


3 
In olden days, Vanzetti, 
They used a cross instead ; 
They stretched a man upon its beams 
By foot and hand and head; 
And nailed him there with iron spikes, 
Until his heart was dead. 


4 
But nowadays, Vanzetti, 
Good men are very kind; 
They offer you an easy chair, 
To sleep, if you’re inclined ; 
With nice electric batteries 
To sooth an anxious mind. 
5 
Great Caiaphas is Christian, now— 
He heeds what Jesus says; 
And Pilate, who is civilized, 
Does justice all his days; 
And even executioners 
Have sweet and gentle ways. 


[53 ] 


Yet cruel death is much the same 
In’any modern city; 

The fires of fear and hate and lust 
Consume all human pity; 

And righteous mobs cry “Crucify” 
In Charlestown as in Calvary. 


7 
And after-death is much the same, 
For no men kill the soul; 
They rend and burn and crush the flesh, 
But leave the spirit whole; 
And then strange wonders come to pass 
That men cannot control. 


8 
The buried dead lie not in peace 
Within the quiet tomb; 

Their broken lives are quickened, 
They grope amid the gloom; 
And, sudden, they are born again 

From out a timeless womb 


9 
They rise, these dead and walk the earth: 
John Brown is marching on; 
Shrewd Socrates is teaching still 
How wisdom may be won; 
The shining Christ is yet a light 
For men to gaze upon. 


10 
They rise and shine, these noble dead, 
Like planets in the sky; 
They speak—and stricken nations hear 
The voice without reply; 
They live—and all the world beholds 
The life that cannot die. 


[54] 


11 
There’s a chair for you, Vanzetti, 
In a house where angels tread; 
A throne with thrones where sit the host 
Who judge the quick and dead; 
The martyr-host, whose sufferings 
Divide the good and bad! 


12 
Upon that throne, Vanzetti, 
You'll sit the ages through; 
And all the myriad sons of men 
Will stand, and look on you— 
The proud, to wither and bow down, 
The meek, to live anew. 


13 
Look up, look up, Vanzetti, 
Your chair is glowing bright; 
Your prison chamber, thronged with saints 
Who welcome you tonight ; 
The forged lightnings of men’s wrath, 
God’s baptismal of light! 


—John Haynes Holmes 
Execution Day, August 22, 1927. 


| 95 | 


THE INFAMOUS RITUAL 


The summit of our worship has been reached 

and here upon this gangrene hill we stand 

showing our blood-garnished teeth where touched 
their sweet unwelcome flesh. Great God, thy hand 
is opaque to all others’ light. To us, O Lord, 

it is a clear glass, and this was thy reward, 

the toothsome sacrifice of these unwelcome kind 
not ours, hence not worthy to the feast. See, 

we have not slain them singly but in pairs, 

we felt solicitude for even what was in their cry; 
mercy we gave them, yea, what greater glory theirs 
than to have been our holy unwelcome lust, 

our pleasure and our appetite. And they who stood, 
unwilling to forsake in us their trust, 

beneath the sacrificial flame raising wrought arms 
and voices, they are the unaccepted brotherhood 
who gave us our little beauty and our only charms— 
we have repaid them often with their proper place. 
Ours is the dominance of claws and not the grace 
of fingers; ours is not the sweetness of a hand. 
Almighty Bludgeon, we have been taught to hide the 
face when we have by thy might bestowed the wand. 


—Harry Alan Potamkin 


[ 96 ] 


A HALF HOUR BEFORE THE EXECUTION OF 
SACCO AND VANZETTI 


There will be no light 

in a half hour. 

The moon will lift cloths of white cloud 
to her eyes, 

and stars will slink 

into the cheerless grottoes of the night. 


In a half hour 

there will be no sound. } 

Vallies will disband their far echoes 

martialed on the distant slopes. | 

Mountains 

will quiet their clanging cymbals of veined metal. 
Trees, rigidly mute, 

will be deaf to the wind. 


In a half hour 

life will falter and rot. 

A pestilential rain will drive long fingers 
to covet the buried seeds, 

and green sprouts 

will sicken upon themselves and die.... 


This half hour raised upon eternity’s breast 

like a terrible dug for the whole world to suck 

is shrivelled and the poisoned milk has coursed 

into the measureless veins of the Unknown Mother... 


Molten streams 

trickle into countless hearts 
and black shells 

sound the thin crackle of doom. 
The very earth 


[57] 


quivers and splits 
and there is only ruin at her heart.... 


Women have not lost the ancient wail. 
Ettore Rella 


ON HEARING THE NEWS THAT GOVERNOR 
FULLER SANCTIONED THE MURDER OF 
SACCO AND VANZETTI 


I love the forests of the lightnings, where 
White-hot and terrible trees with purple boughs 
Shake down the rain, like wild leaves, thru the air 
And then fall crashing on the mountains’ brows. 
The storm without me is the storm within: 

The lightnings make white forests in my soul: 
Within my spirit roars earth’s stress and din: 
Within my mind the mightier thunders roll. 

Fall, fall great livid sky-upholding trees! 

Fall, fall and shatter all our human world! 

Fall like doom’s conscious Caryatides 

And let high heaven to deep hell be hurled. 
Crush man, the angel with the maggot’s brain: 
Crush man, the idiot ape, the spawn of Cain! 


--E. Merrill Root 


[ 58 ] 


GENTLEMEN OF MASSACHUSETTS 


Understand this, you bleak-hearts, you gray imposters, you 
wisps, you spectres, half-born, death-elected ; 


No man votes death to another; self-given, that cup, and 
you— 


Seven years we pled and pled with you; we said: 


“This blood you crave is poison, this for you and yours the 
final, steep 


“Gulf to oblivion, why so fast, old apes? The tiger Tomor- 
row has smelled you, the sky 


“Breeds vultures, though you sow a hundred Christs on every 
hill 


“Death is your harvest, it will not be long. 


“Because the fish peddler sang as he brought the sea’s gifts 
to the people— 


“Because the shoe-maker laughed as he nailed a new last 
in the sky— 


“God, how you bayed in the fouled mangers of your courts, 
your clubs, your counting houses! 


“God, how you wolfed the lean bone of your nothingness!” 


Now it is done; the fish peddler goes free; the shoe-maker 
walks well shod in a temple you cannot defile. 


I think you will be quiet a little now; deaf old men soon 
learn not to speak much. 


[59 ] 


Scarcely you chose at all, every man to his poison and yours 
has been a long time brewing. 


We, who heard the death rattle, might have spared our pains. 


The wheel turns; gentlemen, I think the earth is a little sick 
of you. 


Brown men, yellow men, black men, women and little naked 
children will walk these lanes 


Have you not seen how the sick fields welcome the new 
blood? 


Be quick, the old lilacs, the wild indifferent laurel will feed 
on your bones. 


Be quick, I would not have one laurel bell less pink for your 


delay. 
—James Rorty 


| 60 ] 


TO BISHOP LAWRENCE 
(On His Congratulatory Telegram to Gov. Fuller) 


You call yourself a follower of Christ, 
Who chuckled when these men were sacrificed ? 


You dare to preach of Jesus on the cross, 
You who have sanctioned the unholy loss 


Of two brave lonely dreamers who have stood 
Like Him for peace and brotherhood? 


Go hide your face among the Pharisees, 
Who always have condemned such Christs as these. 


Go hide your face among the world’s disdained! 
Your hands are leprous and your vestments stained. 


—Lucia Trent 


TO PRESIDENT LOWELL AND HIS COMMISSION 


Oh, let us not be bitter against foes 

Of right, too base to bear the name of men. 
How blind and pitiful you are, God knows, 

Herded like common swine within the pen 
Of your class prejudice and coward fears. 

Our bitterness would sear our tongues in vain 
For now no lips of passion and no tears 

Can heal two lives of this deep-thrusted pain. 
Thank God, dark earth is mothering and kind, 

Kinder than your low court and prison den. 
You cannot kill the dream of those who find 

A faith that shall restore the world to men. 


—Lucia Trent 


ee 


GOLGOTHA IN: MASSACHUSETTS? 


Not even two thieves to grace this slow murder. 
Instead, two innocent dreamers, in place of one 
Tortured for seven years, a hell harder 
Than the crude spitting and flogging of Mary’s son. 
And the end either the leaping, rending spark 
Or longer commuted torture . . . all to please 
Those who herd men into a fouler dark, 
Heedless of the heaping agonies, 
For gain... for dividends . . . for prosperity. 
For a world where a Coolidge or a Harding primps, 
And iron rule and rigid authority + 
Are in the dollar, and its plump pimps, 
Until that shrieking hour when a new sky 
Echoes their screams, as the people shout: Crucify! 


—Clement Wood 


[ 62 ] 


AFTER THE CRUCIFIXION 


WHO ARE THE CRIMINALS? 


Massachusetts, with solemn pride, 
Upheld her courts; and two men died. 


The brazen state house on the hill 
Shrieked to the world her right to kill. 


Massachusetts squared her jaw 
And loosed her holy hounds of law. 


Shrewd dogs are they who know red bait, 
Well-trained for punishment and hate. 


The judges, rulers, rich men smile, 
And silk-gowned ladies feast in style. 


To such what means the awful chair? 
Or whether trials are just and fair? 


Cruel men, beware! The Christs you kill 
Will walk in power with us still! 


Within your room of harnessed fire 
You have built a mighty martyrs’ pyre. 


By the great Grand Jury of Mankind 
You stand condemned as fools and blind. 


Your folly proves a turning key 
To set the hordes of the crushed ones free! 


—Vincent G. Burns 


[ 64 ] 


ONCE MORE, O COMMONWEALTH! 
(August 23, 1927) 


Rise up, old ghosts, you dead and dumb, 
To see where the scholars and judges come !— 
Living and eloquent they bear 
New witness to your ancient care: 
They have come in their robes and piled the pitch, 
They have burned their witch, they have 

burned their witch. 


Go back to your graves, you dumb and dead. 

There are other judges in your stead 

Whose hearts, while you lie under sod, 

Are bounden to your jealous God, 

And you and they have eased your itch, 

You have burned your witch, you have 
burned your witch. 


—Wiaitter Bynner 


[65 ] 


JUSTICE IS DEAD 


“Judge Thayer boasted of what he would do to the ‘anarchistic 
bastards’”—From an affidavit alleging prejudice of trial judge im 
the Sacco-Vanzettt case. 


Toll the bells for Justice. ... 
Justice is dead! 

Cowards hold the scepter 
Over her head; 

Hatred holds the balance, 
Vengeance is the cry: 

“Kall them without mercy; 
Let the bastards die!” 


Toll the bells: the judgment’s 
Cruelty stands; 

Pilate, blind and groping, 
Washes his hands. 

Prejudice has triumphed, 
Triumphed in its lust; 

Hope is bruised and bleeding, 
Trampled in the dust. 


Ring the bells for Freedom! 
Truth is not dead: 

Love still weaves its garland 
Over her head. 

Legal crucifixion 
Done by little men 

Cannot vanquish Justice— 
It shall rise again! 


—Harold D. Carew 


[ 66 ] 


RED FLAG 


This is no time for tears, no place for mournful poses. 
We have a trust to fill before our brief day closes. 


A hundred thousand Saccos and Vanzettis starkly die 
Whose agonizing arms accuse the stormy, bloodied sky 


On battlefields, in dismal mills and dank, dark mines 
In fetid tenements and on brave, far-flung picket-lines. 


Whence comes the hue that stains the workers’ flag so red? 
The rich have dyed it deep with the blood of our slaughtered 
dead. 


i 
It is they who have sown the tempest, they who have made 
it war. 
Our children shall win to freedom; theirs shall pay the score. 


—Ralph Cheyney 


AFTER THE MURDER 


They are not dead while still there beats 
One heart that freedom’s blood has stirred ; 
While still amid the dolts and cheats 

One cry in justice’ name is heard. 

Go, Massachusetts! fouled and shamed, 
Go hide your desecrated head; 

Bury the past you have defamed :— 

Your hounded victims are not dead! 


—Miriam Allen deFord 


[ 67 ] 


PRAYER IN MASSACHUSETTS 


Upon this soil may no tree ever grow. 
In this land may no lips ever again 

Speak the word justice, now that all men know 
Those lips have long boasted and in vain 

May never young men hither come to learn 
What cruel elders have no power to teach ° 

May no lights burn here save witch fires that burn 
Along some desolate and abandoned beach. 

May this dour land go back now whence it came— 
To early granite, to implacable sea. 

May there descend on it the cleansing flame 
Of some remote supreme catastrophe 

Divorcing it forever with its shame 
From men who would be generous, wise and free. 


—Arthur Davison Ficke 


[ 68 ] 


LEST WE FORGET 


(“Now that the Sacco-Vanzetti case is a closed incident, let us turn 
our thoughts to other things more vital to the nation’s welfare. 
—News Item.) 


Now that the trial has ended, 
And the execution is o’er; 
Let us return to our business, 
Talk of the thing no more, 
File it away in the records, 
Dead men’s ashes won’t speak; 
Turn to tomorrow’s problems, 
“Who'll win the fight next week?” 


Drink with the judge at the clubhouse, 
Styme his ball on the links; 
Escape from the inquisition 
Of the mind that unceasingly thinks, 
Some things are better forgotten, 
The clamor for justice dies; 
Conscience is eased of its mission, 
If only the ghosts won’t rise. 


But some of us can’t forget it, 
By the bitter pain we shared, 
By our high hopes disillusioned, 
By the faith that was not spared; 
By the questions still unanswered, 
By the challenge still ignored, 
We've lit a flame within our hearts, 
A beacon of the Lord. 


So keep us, keep us, Justice, 
Forever toward that Light; 

Keep us we pray from slipping 
Back to that deadly plight ; 

Where buoyant doubts lie buried, 


| 69 | 


And rebel hearts must beat, 
To the tune and rhythm set them 
By tradition’s lagging feet. 


—S. Ralph Harlow 


DEATH WATCH 
(Midnight, August 22nd, 1927) 


We sat in silence so profound 
As Death’s hand loosed the bars; 
It seemed as if our spirits too 
Went out beyond the stars. 


We wondered why one after one 
The Pilates turned from plea 
That never was refused by Him 
Who walked in Galilee. 


And when will this be clear to us 
Across the fleeting ban; 

That we may learn from simple men 
Of Brotherhood to Man? 


—Mary Plowden Kernan 


[ 70 ] 


AUGUSY? 22nd: A RED-LETTER DAY 


I’m goin’ to buy myself a bloomin’ flag 
An’ wave the stars an’ stripes over my head! 
Make way for me an’ my old rusty nag, 
For once I’m patriotic, I see red! 
Haven’t you heard the news, you starin’ sheep? 
Sacco an’ Vanzetti will hang today! 
That’s right, fall in behind, let no man sleep— 
My Country ’Tis of Thee—harrah—hooray! 


Down with the bloody little murderers— 
Who do them goddam dagoes think they are? 

Off with their heads—an’ if their friends are sore— 
Off with theirs, too—the dirty foreigners! 

An’ while we’re at it, raise this day on high— 
Let’s nail it up beside the Fourth o’July! 


—Alfred Kreymborg 


[71] 


i 


MURDER AT MIDNIGHT 


In Memoriam Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, Betrayed and 
Murdered In The American Class War, August 22, 1927. 


a 


“Both are dead.” 

Dead. 

Press the button. Turn on the juice. 
Dead. 

Waiting, waiting. 

For what? 

Two wops to sit down in a chair 

And be dead. 

Show’s over. 

Time to go home, go to bed. 

Time to forget, put it out of your head. 


Dead. 

(Death. Grim Reaper. Symbolic. Cloak. Hood. Scythe. 
Skull.) 

Dead. 

Both. 


I walked out into the huge soft night. 
No light. 
Someone had strangled the stars. 


II. 


Seven years to make a shroud. 

| Seven years to make it strong enough — 

\ To hold the whole of life. 

‘ (Wonder how long it takes to make an electric chair ?) 
Seven years for two wops. 

Dying. 

Dead. 

“Massachusetts is too proud——” 

Seven years to make a shroud. 


[ 72 ] 


7 


po: III. 


\ 


l/ 


\V 


iG 


CITY 

JAIL 
HUNGER 
WORKER 
SUBWAY 
DEMPSEY 
BABE RUTH 
JESUS 
STRIKE 
STARVATION 
MURDER 
DEATH 


IV. 


Three men in frock coats playing dice. 
Three men and a fourth playing with skulls. 
Fingers weblike and precise. 

/ Caressing calmly the fluttering dice. 

Harvard accents glide like gulls 

From lips like nooses hard and strong. 
What are the stakes? How long, how long? 
Four men in frock coats playing dice. 

Dice. Are they loaded? 

Loaded. Bloated. 

Four bloated frock coats playing with skulls. 


V. 


And on two faces hangs the mask 

’ Of the immobile anguish of the years. © 

This is the honorable task 

Of those unbitten by subtle doubts or fears. 

Climb, you lousy wops, into your holes. 

_The god of the Fullers and Thayers will care for your souls. 


[73] 


VI. 


Nights are made black for deeds like this. 
Nights are made black, muffled and secret. 
Press the button. Turn on the juice. 
Show’s over. 


And the corroding dawn, 

Waiting, 

Steals like a thief, trembling and ghastly white, 
Through the thick, bolted night. 


The job is done. 

Whistles shriek in factory and mill. 
And the implacable sun. 

Climbing, 

Hangs splendid and terrible and still. 


VII. 


¢ Go back, slaves, go back. 
Go back to the factories, the dancing machines, 
Go back, dancing slaves. 


Noon. 

(The sun is a big round brass spittoon.) 
Life seethes, blown up. 

Collapses like a pricked balloon. 

Night. 

“Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves.” 


VELL 


Too intolerably blue, empty, shining, remote the sky. 

Too intolerably serene, calm the tall, greatwinded trees. 

Too green every leaf, every grass. 

Seared by no sadness, no blight even of the cool keen panting 
autumn, 


[74] 


The brown stain of the taking away. 
Nothing to mar, no hunger of stamped-out growing, no cry 
Out of denial. 


Trees lift strenuous leanness, raise petulant hands, drag 
darkness 

To them. 

| Nothing, nothing to mar. 


“a IX. 


Each sound is their sound. 

Life demands life. 

Beyond the pathos and the pain 
That humans martyr humans with 
Their blood shouts over all the earth. 
Blood, red blood. 

My brothers’ blood is on my hands. 
My brothers’ agony burns my flesh. 
Agony. Blood. 

On my hands. 


X 
f Pity the wretches that will sit in the cells 
, | Of Charlestown and of Dedham Jails. 
\¥™~ | Pity the poor stiffs that will come after 
\ To live a while in those exquisite hells, 
_ To live and hear always two voices, always the tread 
/ Of feet always, always dead. 
| Pity the fellows that will scrub the floors and walls 
| Of Charlestown and of Dedham Jails, 
_ And never be able to wash away 
, The great trembling stain 
\. Of Sacco’s and Vanzetti’s pain 


(“The men of this dying old society they brutally have pulled 


[75 ] 


Mi 


/ 


me away from the embrace of your brother and your 
poor mother.”’) 

Pity the rats that will gnaw the moldy crumbs 

Of Charlestown and of Dedham Jails, 

And smell the smell of their blood 

And gasp. | 

‘“T would not wish to a dog or to a snake, to the most low 
misfortunate creature of the earth—I would not wish 
to any of them what I have had to suffer for things 
that I am not guilty of.’’) 

Pity them, pity them all. 


Al. 


Sacco And Vanzetti Must Not Die! 
Shrill signs hurl the workers’ cry. 
Strike. Protest. Telegram. 
Massachusetts doesn’t give a damn. 
A million-throated workers’ crying. 
Sacco and Vanzetti dying, dying. 
Sacco and Vanzetti dead. 

Dead. 


WE SHALL NOT SOON FORGET! 
XII. 


Hang up your justice on the sour-apple tree of your pride. 

Hang it up, I say, for vultures to feed on 

For soft worm fattening, for the gladdening of all gnawing, 
ravenous things. 

Hang it up where its resonant stink will fill every corner and 
crack of the earth. 

Swing it, swing it. 

Hang up your justice on the sour-apple tree of your pride. 


—A. B. Magil 


[ 76 ] 


TWO CRUCIFIED 
(After Midnight, August Twenty-second) 


O Jew Jesus, Jew Jesus, 

Down from your tree again! 

The wind, the wind, the wind, the wind, 
Whirls with a dove in pain. 


O Jew Jesus, Jew Jesus, 

Great fellowship for you! 

The peace, the dream, the hope, are here— 
See what these poor doves do! 


O Jew Jesus, Jew Jesus, 

Wings in a world of love! 

The wind, the wind, the wind, the wind, 
Cries like a bleeding dove! 


—Jeannetie Marks 


[77] 


GRIST 


Now we go down the years dry eyed with hate, 
Never again the tears of little woes 

Shall blind the hard and arid sight of those 
Who know that human laws can never wait— 
But kill as surely as the water flows. 

Never again the hope that any fate 

Can stay the death of words that came too late, 
And purge us of the bitterness that knows 

The certain way that empty justice goes. 


—Kathleen M lay 


[ 78 ] 


JUSTICE DENIED IN MASSACHUSETTS 


Let us abandon then our garden and go home 

And sit in the sitting room. 

Shall the larkspur or the corn grow under this cloud 

Sour to the fruitful seed 

Is the cold earth under this cloud. 

Fostering quack and weed, we have marched upon but cannot 
conquer ; 

We have bent the blades of our hoes against the stalks of 
them. 

Let us go home and sit in the sitting room. 


Not in our day 

Shall the cloud go over and the sun rise as before, 

Beneficent upon us 

Out of the glittering bay, 

And the warm winds be blown inward from the sea. 

Moving the blades of corn. 

With a peaceful sound 

Forlorn, forlorn, 

Will stand the blue hay rack by the empty mow; 

And the petals drop to the ground, 

Leaving the tree unfruited, 

The sun that warmed our stooping backs and withered the 
weed uprooted. 


We shall not feel it again. 

We shall all die in darkness and be buried in the rain. 
What from the splendid dead 

We have inherited 

Furrows sweet to the grain, and the weed subdued 
See now the slug and the mildew plunder. 

Evil does overwhelm 

The larkspur and the corn; 

We have seen them flounder. 


[79] 


Let us sit still 
Here in the sitting room until we die. 
At the step of Death on the walk rise and go, 
Leaving to our children’s children this beautiful doorway, 
And this elm. 
And a blighted earth to till 
With a broken hoe. 
—Edna St. Vincent Millay 


It is a great grief that your book will contain no verses 
from me in tribute to those two brave and gentle spirits, 
Sacco and Vanzetti, whom for seven years I have tried to do 
my small part in saving from judicial murder. I am ailing 
in body and mind and have not today whatever power over 
words I had when I wrote “The Lynching Bee.” But can 
you not incorporate this note in your book? I would not 
seem by silence to give consent to this terrible deed—terrible 
for its social implications of contemporary upper class stu- 
pidity and smugness, even more than for its fierce moment 
of injustice and cruelty. Let my feet and face stand with 
the rest of you, even though my lips are shut. There, in 
that company, my very silence will speak. 


—William Ellery Leonard 


[ 80 ] 


THE MEETING 


The blackness faded, the day was breaking, 
The road ahead was strange and bare. 
“Welcome, Sacco! Welcome, Vanzetti!” 
Cried three who met them there. 

*Like you,” said the old man, “I died for justice.” 
“Like you,” said the young man, “for brotherhood.” 
“Like you,” said the woman, “I died for heeding 
The voice of the highest good.” 


“We all have known the crowded courtroom, 
The lying charge, the doom of death, 

We have known the loneliness, the darkness, 
The pang of the parting breath. 


But men learn slowly, comrades, slowly ; 

Many must yet be sacrificed 

To teach them righteousness, love, and justice’— 
Said Socrates, Joan, and Christ. 


—Miriam E. Oatman 


[81 ] 


THEY ARE DEAD NOW 
This isn’t a poem 


This is two men in grey prison clothes. 

One man sits looking at the sick flesh of his hands— 
hands that haven’t worked for seven years. 

Do you know how long a year is? 

Do you know how many hours there are in a day 
when a day is twenty-three hours on a cot in a cell, 

in a cell in a row of cells in a tier of rows of cells 

all empty with the choked emptiness of dreams? 


Do you know the dreams of men in jail? 
Sacco sits looking at the sick flesh of his hands— 
hands that haven’t worked for seven years 


remembers hoeing beans at twilight in his garden 
remembers the crisp rattle of the edger 
remembers the mould of his wife’s back 
fuzziness of the heads of kids. 

Dreams are memories that have grown sore and festered, 
dreams are an everlasting rack to men in jail. | 


Vanzetti writes every night from five to nine 
fumbling clumsily wittily with the foreign words 
building paper barricades of legal tags, 

habeas corpus, writ of certiorari, 

dead spells out of a forgotten language 

taken from the mouths of automatons in black. 


They are dead now 

The black automatons have won. 

They are burned up utterly 

their flesh has passed into the air of Massachusetts 
their dreams have passed into the wind. 


[ 82 ] 


“They are dead now,” the Governor’s Secretary nudges the 
Governor, 

“They are dead now,” the Superior Court judge nudges the 
Supreme Court judge, 


\ “They are dead now,” the College President nudges the Col- 
: lege President, 
A dry chuckling comes up from all the dead: 
The white collar dead; the silkhatted dead; the frockcoated 
dead 
They hop in and out of automobiles 
breathe deep in relief 
as they walk up and down the Boston streets. 


These two men were not afraid 

to smell rottenness 

in the air of Massachusetts 

so they are dead now and burned 

into the fierce wind from Massachusetts. 
Their breath has given the wind new speed. 
Their fire has burned out of the wind 

the stale smell of Boston 


Ten thousand towns have breathed them in 

and stood up beside workbenches 

dropped tools 

flung plows out of the furrow 

and shouted 

into the fierce wind from Massachusetts. 

In that shout’s hoarse throat 

is the rumble of millions of men marching in order 
is the roar of one song in a thousand lingoes. 


The warden strapped these men into the electric 
chair 

the executioner threw the switch 

and set them free into the wind 


[83 ] 


they are free of dreams now 

free of greasy prison denim 

their voices blow back in a thousand lingoes singing 
one song 

to burst the eardrums of Massachusetts. 


Make a poem of that if you dare! 
—John Dos Passos 


[ 84 ] 


SACCO-VANZETTI 


What !—set adrift in dark of sudden death 

These humble toilers for the daily bread 

Of wife and children? How—when they are dead— 
Should God be answered for their stolen breath? 
Could late remorse, or rite, or any wreath 

Redeem hard judgment, iron hand, blind head 

That balanced Wealth with Justice, and then said :— 
“Because they menace Mammon, it is... . death’? 


Bewildered aliens—knowing little law; 
(Our many laws we mostly disobey !) 
But human—so believing no base flaw— 
Should blot from them the light of Freedom’s day— 
Though they had been misled to such misdeed, 
Remember: Capital‘s pet jail birds— freed! 


—Alice N. Spicer 


[ 85 ] 


THE WAY 


Pass not too near these outcast sons of men 

Where walked the Christ ahead! lest you, too, share 
The rabble’s wrath! in time take heed! beware 

The shame—the bitter woe of Him again! 

Your flaming zeal speak not so rash—so loud! 


Pass on your prudent path within the crowd. 


What if they mark you of His band? and cry: 
“Behold this one, as well!’ ah—you should know 
The jeers—the stones, for all that with Him go! 
Have caution, fool! let others yearn and die! 
These broken ones you love with hot heartbreak 
Can save you not! be warned by His mistake! 
Remember how He spurned the risk and loss! 
Remember how they nailed Him to a Cross! 


—Laura Simmons 


[ 86 ] 


‘LO, GOVAIADVIN Da FULLER 
(August 23, 1927) 


And now the awful deed is done, wash well your hands 
Before the mob; can you not see 

The Nazarene go forth at your commands 

And climb again to Calvary? 

Snug and content you sleep tonight while he 

Is writhing on the cross again. 

Hear how the mob shouts at his agony; 

Hear how a few weep at his pain. 

How will it be with you in that red dawn 

When we shall scale the walls of hate and fear, 

When those you killed shall be again reborn 

With all the truths they held so dear? 

Pilate, you have steeled our hearts and cleared our eyes 
To meet the morning light as darkness dies. 


—Max Press 


[ 87 ] 


FOR A LAND THAT ALLOWS SACCO AND 
VANZEDTITO DIF 


From heaven what sign? 

What writing on the wall? 

What whisper running along the wind that power and pride 
shall fall? ) 

Assyria lies barren, the might of Egypt is a whirled simoon 
over deserts, the Persian hosts. 

Fell behind tumbling waters, and Greece is a story told, and 
sounding Judea 

Lives in a dying book, and Rome was proud of its world 
dominion, the haughty hidalgos of Spain 

Have gone with their Inquisition; mighty nations have gone 

Up roads of pride and splendor past memory of their start, 
past chiding recollection 

Of simple things and honest ways and surging force of 
spirit—spirit’s a word they deny, a myth to them, a 
delusion 

Their science and power and growth have parted from, have 
surpassed—their one salvation, 

Pride: To stand in the ways of truth that lead past public 
scorning. 

Power: To be gentle as the mountain breasted with pine 
and crested with snow, calm as justice opening her 
eyes, serene 

As laying of fingers on the new born. Have ye this power, 
this pride, O Nation of Nations? O ye in your turn. 

For a space overgrown, three-bellied lord of the earth, with 
brazen bowels and feet of tempered steel and head 

Bent ground-ward from habit of search for gold and oil! 
Have ye mole’s eyes? Look up—will the sun blind 
ye? Can ye look upon man 

Nor be ashamed? Will your kind know ye? Already the 
whispers, the squirrels through the forests of the mind 

Telling their brethren the tale, beyond fear and hate to a 
pity, as for the eagle dying, as for a land once great 


[ 88 | 


Turned by its splendor from truth, won by its wealth from 
justice, swaggerly blindly 

To its doomed end. What have ye of worth, O my country, 
what hidden well of spirit, with breath 

Of humility astir in your lungs, softly, what steel rod of 
wrath ejecting the wrong 

As the ramrod, the powder—what fire to eat the poison 
though half your glory burn—my country !— 


—Joseph T. Shipley 


[ 89 | 


DEAD — THEY LIVE 


Their spirits march to no slow drums of death. 

Let fall no tear! Their bodies have been slain— 
Their spirits freed by one hot blasting breath, 

Now march with those who have not died in vain 


Unloosed from narrow prison cells they go 

With giant strides through all the earthly lands, 
Red banners flaunt about them, and to show 

The way bright torches flame in mighty hands. 


They’re marching, marching, marching in the night. 
Unshackled now they move with steady tread 

And eyes that glance neither to left nor right 
Within the ranks of labor’s martyred dead. 


Lift high the crimson banners! Lift the torches! 
Two staunch recruits have joined this army brave 

To shining goals that ever steadfast marches, 
Defying now the prison and the grave! 


—Henry Reich, Jr. 


[90 ] 


NOW DEATH IS KING 
(To Sacco and Vanzetti) 


Now death is king and death’s cadets 
are seated in the high places 

let honest men look to their souls 

for we are fallen on evil days. 


When justice owns herself a whore 
and panderers sit upon the bench 
and shepherds of our youth by day 
turn death’s procurers in the dark 
let honest men look to their souls. 


Let us look to our souls I say 
and cast the ghastly reckoning 
of all our sloth and heart’s decay 
for we are fallen on evil days. 


Not theirs the cross were crucified 
nor yet Pilat’s or Pharisees’ ; 

in the calculus of God 

Christ and Judas cancel out 


In one apocalyptic flash 

that we the quick may live to see 
how death is king and his cadets 
are seated in the high places. 


Oh, honest men look to your souls 
treasure the shame and agony 

and note how from our stagnant depths 
has sprung the common enemy 

now we are fallen on evil days. 


—Edwin Seaver 


[91 ] 


HARVEST 


(In the first few minutes of August 23rd, 1927 there were four exe- 
cutions in Boston, Massachusetis. Those murdered at this time were 
Madeiros, Sacco, Vanzetti, and a pathetic little hunchback, Justice.) 


How did we lose the road and reach this jungle? 
How did we ever find our way to this? 

Follow the brook, they said, it’s bright and clear 
And you'll be safe from swamp and precipice. 


How could we know that some more wise than God 
Would dig canals and tamper with the brook, 
Bending it back until it met itself, 

The thing was never said in song or book? 


How could we know that forced into a ring, 
We would be left in jungles, black and tall, 
The brook, encircling all our tangled lives, 
Swelling to overflow and drown us all? 


How could we know that helpless in the net 
Our kin and kind had spun we'd feel the thong 
Of some small cricket chirping on a twig, 

“Life is gay and man is never wrong.” 


—Josiah Titzell 


[92] 


PEDDLER 


(If it had not been for these thing, I might have live out my Ife, 
talking at street corners to scorning men. I might have die, unmarked, 
unknown, a failure. Now we are not a failure. . . —Vanzetti to 
Judge Thayer.) 


But for these things I might live out my life 
On corners telling pale, disheartening slaves 
Diluted truths. I might proclaim that strife 
Of man with man is sin, that justice waves 

A ragged cloth and holds unbalanced scales. 
To die unmarked, unknown, was my poor lot; 
But for these things my words were foolish tales 
A peddler tells to men about to rot. 

By dying I have trimmed a smoking lamp 
That still lights footsteps down a narrow hall; 
My pain has been sustaining fuel in damp, 
Unlovely places where the ghastly pall 

Of hopelessness is cast. My spirit sings, 

For in my tomb a broken lantern swings. 


—Bethuel Matthew Webster, Jr. 


[93 ] 


Is 
Is 
Is 
Is 
Is 
Is 
Is 
Is 
Is 
Is 
Is 
Is 
Is 
Is 
Is 
Is 


SACCO AND VANZETTI 


it death to endure in the thoughts and the hearts of 
millions of men everywhere? 

it death to uphold, stimulate, and inspire, confidence in 
eternal truth-values ? 

it death to so terrify power entrenched that its cohorts 
must murder to govern? 

it death to re-vivify laws of creative ideals, for re-birth, 
ever healthy and virile? 

it death to face death with that calmness of surety knowl- 
edge of innocence brings? 

it death to await with love toward the killers, having no 
word of hate for the tyrants? 

it death to so challenge the thought of the living that 
thoughtless ones think and thought-precedents crumble? 

it death to remodel ideas extant so that even conservatives 
listen ? 

it death to promote these ideas into actions, not alone 
by the one, but by thousands? 

it death to stand firm when the storm of negation would 
break positive corner-stones ? 

it death to remind progeny of rebellion that rebels are 
forebears of freedom? 

it death to raze barricades, climate, class, race, which so 
long have obstructed thought’s travels? 

it death to precipitate friendships, unknown, between these 
who, alive, are remote from each other? 

it death to establish pass-words and pass-ports which the 
future requires at its portals? 

it death to re-focus the eyes of the living to see coming 
turn-stiles and levels? 

it death to re-propagate timeless, and mutual, light-giving 
fire, recognizable to all the living? 


eral 


No! All these achievements are Life! Life full-robed in the 
splendor of dawn and the morrow! 

Death comes but to those who so stupidly try to own night- 
shrouds for yesterday’s coffins! 

Life owns nothing, gives all, and blossoms wherever new 
dawns are expected and morrows elude all possessors! 


—Alice Riggs Hunt 


[95 ] 


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